With 59 special purpose vehicles (SPVs) in place, India's Smart Cities Mission is now ready to take off. With more than 15 tenders coming in every month, winning cities have made sure their envisaged plans are on track, albeit at a slow speed.

Less than 20 per cent of the wastewater discharged by households, and 60 per cent of industrial wastewater, is treated in India. This situation has to change, say SHISHAM PRIYADARSHINI and AMISH SHROFF.

Richa Industries Limited, a construction and engineering company, has secured an order worth Rs 35 crore from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for constructing six elevated Metro stations on the Mukundpur-Shiv Vihar Corridor and a depot-cum-workshop of the Jahangirpuri-Badli Corridor Phase III of Delhi MRTS.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has extended an Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan of around Rs 2,000 crore for the fifth phase of the Chennai Metro Project. It also extended a loan of around Rs 1,300 crore for the second phase of Tamil Nadu Investment Promotion Programme.

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and Afcon Infrastructure Ltd have bagged Rs 1,675-crore work of constructing the underground section of the Ahmedabad Metro. This is the costliest civil work to be undertaken in the first phase of the Rs 10,700-crore Metro rail project.

Low-cost housing is a volume business. Private companies would be interested in this business only when there is scale. The intention of the government to give this sector infra status is to offer access to low-cost funding for the sector.

Infrastructure status for affordable housing was a long-standing requirement of the sector. This move should boost the volume of construction activity across the country, which has been struggling with reduction in the number of projects being launched over the last few quarters.

Agree. Developing a domestic transshipment port is a good idea if we talk about seaports, there are several countries and commercial centers around the world that don’t have a seaport and these countries have to use the seaports of other countries in order to import or export their cargo, which will give a competitive advantage.

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kishore tamidela says:

Adhering to international best business practices with niche boutique firms could open doors to easily tap financing from institutional investors both debt and equity.